


a war fought over love

by likewinning



Category: Batman - Fandom, DCU, MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for comment-fic, for the prompt: <em>it takes a long time to think of love as something other than a battle.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	a war fought over love

Steve reads Jason's file. He doesn't mean to – he might help SHEILD out, but he's not one of them; he's not a _spy_. He prefers to get to know people over a cup of coffee or a beer – or, as the case is more often these days, over a fight with some out-of-this-world creature.

But after Natasha walks in on Jason spinning tales to Steve about a fight with something called Two-Face (Gotham has some seriously weird villains), Steve finds a file on his kitchen counter two days later with Jason's name on it.

He knew some of it, of course. No one gets into their line of work without something to prove, without a chip or an anvil on their shoulder. But somehow, for all the times Jason regaled him with stories from Gotham or Hong Kong or outerspace, he sort of failed to mention that he'd been brutally murdered.

It makes sense, in a way, as much as finding out someone was beaten to death by some kind of psychotic clown _ever_ makes _any_ kind of sense. When Jason first started working with them, he was skittish to say the least. He'd show up, do his job with startling proficiency, maybe a little more brute force than necessary, but he wouldn't get close to anyone. The others took it as Jason being stuck up, maybe, some punk from Gotham who thought he was hot shit because he was one of Bruce Wayne's kids, because he was League of Assassins. But Steve waited. Spoke to the kid. Got him talking about weapons, battle tactics, Saturday morning cartoons – anything to keep him from avoiding eye contact, from spending too much time in his own head. Steve had Jason's skittishness pegged for ex-soldier jitters, maybe, but not – not what it was.

Thing is, now that he knows, it's hard to just go back to joking around with Jason. He thinks he's doing a decent job of not looking at Jason too long, not staring at him and wondering what it must have been like to dig himself out of that grave, but –

"Rogers?" Jason asks. He's staring at Steve like he's waiting for a response. They're in a booth at a diner, waiting for their food to arrive. It's become a sort of after-work ritual for them, since the first time Jason bet Steve he could out-eat him and they both went through three burgers, a plate of fries, and a milkshake each and then called it a tie. Right now, Jason's obviously been talking for at least a minute.

"Sorry," Steve says. "I – what was that?" he asks.

Jason snorts, shakes his head. "Are you okay?" he asks, and Steve means to tell him right there, because even though he doesn't want to freak Jason out, he also figures the last thing Jason needs is someone lying to him, but – "I mean, usually when someone looks at me like that, they either want to kill me or fuck me."

If there's one thing Steve never quite gets used to, it's this special brand of bluntness. Bucky's the same way sometimes, so maybe it's something about coming back from the dead, or being trained as an assassin and sort of brainwashed, or – Steve really doesn't know, but he's blushing, and Jason's grinning at him, and Steve clears his throat and says, "Uh," because he hasn't _not_ thought about it.

Jason's leg touches his under the table. Steve's in civilian clothes, but he knows Jason has at least a knife or two tucked into his boot, anyway, that he's packed and ready to go in case terrorists take over the diner or whatever it is people like him and Bucky seem to assume is going to happen. "We really wouldn't have to make it weird," Jason assures him. "I mean, fucking and fighting are kind of the same thing for me, you know?"

Steve doesn't know, not exactly, but he understands. He means to tell Jason it's not about that, but he finds himself pressing into Jason's touch and saying, "It doesn't have to be."

It is, though, that first time. That first time, when Jason leans up and kisses him, tasting like mint and menthol, all of Steve's honesty comes pouring out and he says, "I know, Jason. I – I read your file," and Jason pulls back a little. He expects Jason to punch him, maybe even to leave, but after a minute Jason shrugs and says, "It's cool. I knew under all that truth and honor shit, there was a liar like the rest of us."

Steve doesn't deny it, just lets Jason kiss him fierce and hot, lets Jason bite and scratch at his skin if he has to, and when Jason tugs his jeans off and asks Steve, "What? No stars and stripes boxers?" he laughs right along with him.

*

What surprises Steve – what maybe shouldn't surprise Steve at all – is that after, Jason still sticks around him. He still cracks jokes with Steve over coms, still drags Steve to diners and grimy coffee houses so he can talk shit about everyone else even though Steve can tell, for the most part, the others are growing on Jason.

They don't talk about what Steve knows. Jason catches him thinking about it sometimes, but he usually follows _earth to Steve_ up with an inappropriate joke about crowbars, and then everything's back to (relative) normalcy.

"You know," Jason warns him once, his hands on Steve's chest while he straddles him, his head tilted up toward the ceiling, "if this is about fixing me, or whatever, we can stop right here. The last person who tried to save my soul got me blown up trying."

Steve groans as Jason grinds down on him, trying to keep track of the thread of conversation with the way Jason's riding him. He's learned that in addition to talking on coms, and during battles, and over meals, Jason talks during sex.

He reaches up, gets his hand on the back of Jason's neck to tilt him down toward him, so Jason's looking at him. He blinks, but doesn't try to avoid Steve's eyes when Steve says, "Hey. I promise not to get you blown up. And –" Jason tilts his hips again, getting him deeper, grinning viciously at Steve when it makes him lose his train of thought for a minute – "and it's not about that."

It's not the truth, not exactly, but it's not a lie, either. He knows Jason might never trust him, not completely. Some ghosts are too hungry, too hard to kill. He knows, too, that Jason might deny that there's a difference between the afterglow of sex and a fight, between a soft touch and an angry fist. These things, he knows, take time.

But when Jason kisses him soft, digs his stubby nails into his skin, matches him terrible pun for terrible pun over coms, he thinks that just maybe, there's plenty of that.


End file.
